A local teen who was recently named the “Top Young Scientist in America” got a round of applause this morning (Tuesday) from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
Heman Bekele, a ninth-grader at Woodson High School, won the annual 3M Young Scientist Challenge in October for developing a soap that could potentially be used to treat skin cancer. He beat out nine other finalists for the 2023 contest’s grand prize, which came with $25,000 and the aforementioned title.
The Board of Supervisors recognized Heman’s accomplishment with a unanimously approved resolution at its meeting today.
“This is a legitimate breakthrough that Heman discovered and produced,” said Braddock District Supervisor James Walkinshaw. “Especially for those of us whose science experiments ended with our ability to glue a picture of a tree on a board, to see and read about what you have done here is really amazing.”
According to the resolution read by Chairman Jeff McKay, Heman was inspired to create his Skin Cancer Treating Soap (SCTS) by his background as an immigrant from Ethiopia, where cancer is a significant but underreported cause of death. Though he was only 4 when his family moved to the U.S., Heman has said that he remembers seeing people work long hours under the hot sun.
Now 14 years old, Heman wanted to come up with a more affordable treatment option, as costs for existing treatments for the most common cancer in the U.S. have climbed.
According to a Fairfax County Public Schools profile, Heman created the soap by experimenting with different chemical compounds like alicylic acid, glycolic acid and tretinoin that can reactivate dendritic cells, which are part of the body’s immune system.
The final product could be manufactured for just 50 cents a bar. The county board’s resolution lauded Heman for his “enthusiasm and dedication, including long hours of researching and testing in his family’s kitchen and basement.”
For the 16th annual 3M Young Scientist Challenge, Heman was paired with one of the company’s scientists and spent four months turning his concept into a prototype. He was named the competition’s winner at 3M’s global headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Oct. 9 and 10.
After the board approved its resolution, Heman thanked his parents — including his mother, who works as a special education teacher at Lynbrook Elementary School in Springfield — as well as the teachers who have supported him since he began attending FCPS as a kindergarten student.
“What I’m hoping to do is turn this passion project into more than that,” Heman told the board. “I’m hoping to turn it into more of a nonprofit organization where I can provide equitable and accessible skin cancer treatment to as many people as possible, so that’s the end goal, just to help people, see a real change and a positive impact on the world.”
(Updated at 11:25 a.m.) The Fairfax County School Board will vote next week on $847,000 in funding for security cameras at nine elementary schools.
That project is among those that could be funded as part of Fairfax County Public Schools’ midyear budget review, which Chief Financial Officer Leigh Burden presented to the board on Monday (Dec. 4).
FCPS has also proposed allocating $100,000 to cover costs associated with renaming Woodson High School after Carter G. Woodson. The change from former FCPS superintendent W.T. Woodson was approved on Nov. 9 and will take effect with the 2024-2025 school year.
“Historically, renaming costs have typically been about $300,000, but many items at Woodson just say ‘Woodson,’ so those items will not have to be replaced,” Burden said.
The board-authorized funding for security cameras would supplement money the county has received from two Virginia Department of Education grants to fund security cameras at eight elementary schools.
“Prioritization is determined by the building age, the number of existing cameras, the number of incidents at a school location as well as access to uninterrupted power,” Burden said in her presentation.
The elementary schools slated to receive funding through the mid-year budget review are Deer Park, Coates, Springfield Estates, Bull Run, Terra Centre, Greenbriar East, Freedom Hill, Bush Hill and Graham Road.
Another eight schools — Pine Spring, Great Falls, Fort Hunt, Sunrise Valley, Newington Forest, Rose Hill, Forest Edge and Glen Forest — will get cameras through the VDOE grants, which had different criteria for each application, according to an FCPS spokesperson.
When selecting the schools, FCPS considered factors such as the number of students eligible for free and reduced meals, the number of incidents at a given school, when the school was built, the availability of uninterrupted power and how many other schools in each region already had security cameras, the spokesperson told FFXnow.
Superintendent Michelle Reid told the school board in May that about half of the elementary schools in FCPS had exterior video cameras, along with all high schools. Installations at all middle schools were expected to finish this year, and she hoped to expand the program to all elementary schools in the “near future.”
Overall, FCPS has just over $6.1 million in additional funding to allocate in its mid-year budget review, most of which comes from higher-than-anticipated sales tax revenue identified after the end of fiscal year 2023, according to Burden. About $1 million comes from federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grants, which support the school operating fund, she said.
The mid-year budget review also includes $88,000 to support restorative justice interventions and $80,000 for improvements to power sources used for Advanced Placement digital testing at select high schools. About $3.1 million would be held for fiscal year 2025, which starts on July 1, 2024.
“We generally like to try to keep the beginning balance around the same level as it is in the previous year because otherwise, if it’s less than that, then that just increases the local request to the county,” Burden said.
Braddock District Representative Megan McLaughlin asked about funding for school maintenance and repairs. She suggested Reid confer with Janice Szymanski, chief of facilities services and capital programs, and her team about addressing some “backlog maintenance issues” ahead of the board’s vote on Dec. 14.
“We just keep telling our communities, in particular our athletic boosters that work hard, tirelessly, year after year to bring money to the table, and then to get told, ‘We’re sorry we promised you that repair project, but there’s no money dedicated to it,’” McLaughlin said. “I think we’re losing faith and support and confidence from our families when we make promises and then we don’t deliver.”
Fairfax County Public Schools is moving forward with a name change for W.T. Woodson High School.
The Fairfax County School Board voted 10-0 with two members absent on Thursday (Oct. 12) to drop former FCPS superintendent Wilber Tucker Woodson as the namesake of the 61-year-old school at 9525 Main Street outside Fairfax City.
The decision came after a month of public outreach in settings both formal — as in a public hearing on Oct. 10 — and informal, according to Braddock District School Board Representative Megan McLaughlin, who brought the issue to the full board last month.
“As a two-generation Woodson family, resident, homeowner, I continue to hold incredible pride for the school and to be a part of this community,” McLaughlin said. “But I also hope that, in our community conversations with each other and having spoken with leaders of our athletic boosters, with our [parent teacher student organization] leaders, with our student leaders, there has been quite an understanding that…as a board and a body, we know how important it is to have names on a building that can inspire all students, our staff and our community.”
As superintendent from 1929 to 1961, Woodson oversaw FCPS during a pivotal period of growth, but the recent discovery of a letter where he denounced integration gave momentum to calls for a name change, including from members of the Black Student Union, McLaughlin previously told FFXnow.
Opposition to renaming the school slightly outweighed support in an online survey that received 1,415 responses from Sept. 15 to noon on Oct. 12, according to a presentation that Superintendent Michelle Reid gave to the school board at Thursday’s meeting.
The balance was tipped mostly by self-identified alumni, some of them old enough to recall “positive interactions” with Woodson as he stayed present in the community after his retirement, McLaughlin said. Concerns included the potential cost and the “very strong connection” some felt to the existing name.
However, a majority of parents or caregivers and “other” respondents — a category that encompassed students, staff and miscellaneous community members — said they are “very likely” to support a name change, which was also favored by all but one of the handful of individuals who testified at the Oct. 10 public hearing.
In a statement read by at-large member Abrar Omeish since she had to leave before the renaming vote came up, the school board’s student representative Rida Karim, a junior at Woodson, said her discussions with fellow students indicated most of them support a change as “a crucial step towards fostering a more inclusive environment.”
“The potential of renaming W.T. Woodson represents a significant step towards justice and unity,” Karim said in the statement. “It serves as a reminder that our present should not be constrained or defined by the past, and a new school name would embody the strength of our community, our compassion and a belief in our commitment to providing for each student, irrespective of their background.”
After last week’s vote, FCPS has shifted into a second phase of community engagement to determine the school’s new name.
The school board proposed Carter G. Woodson, a Virginia native known as the “father of Black history.” More than 450 survey respondents said they would support that, but 369 people suggested alternatives, led by nine submissions of Little River High School in reference to the school’s location near Little River Turnpike.
An online form for feedback and questions on the renaming is now open through Nov. 1. FCPS will hold a community meeting at Woodson High School on Monday, Oct. 23 at 6:30 p.m. and a public hearing at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 24. The school board is set to vote on the new name on Nov. 9.
Family members of a Fairfax native and Woodson High School graduate are among the 150 people reportedly taken hostage by the Palestinian militant group Hamas when it attacked Israel on Saturday (Oct. 7).
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay acknowledged the violence that has now gripped Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza for four days to open today’s board meeting.
“All of us are in shock over what’s happening in the Middle East and the devastating violence that is occurring in Israel and Palestine, including a lot of kidnapping of family members,” McKay said. “[That includes] one of our own, W.T. Woodson graduate Abbey Onn, who’s lived in Israel since 2015, and we know that these attacks are affecting a lot of folks in our community.”
In media interviews, Onn has said that her cousins, ranging in age from 12 to 80, were taken from their home near the Gaza Strip on Saturday. She lost contact with them until the next day, when she saw her 12-year-old second cousin being held by militants in a video posted on Instagram.
Onn told WJLA that her plea for her relatives to be safely returned is “is not political, this is humanitarian.”
“These are people,” she told the TV news station. “These are someone’s grandmother, this is an 80-year-old woman and a 13-year-old girl with special needs, and children and parents.”
Described by an Israeli military official as “our 9/11,” Saturday’s assault by Hamas is the latest escalation in a century-old conflict that can be traced back to Britain’s assumption of control over former Ottoman Empire territories at the end of World War I.
At least 1,600 people have been killed between the initial attack and subsequent Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, where residents are cut off from food, fuel and medicine, according to the Associated Press. Both the Hamas attack on civilians and Israel’s retaliation against a population that it has blockaded since 2007 amount to war crimes, the Human Rights Watch says.
Fairfax County has lowered the flags outside the government center “to honor the lives lost in the terror attack committed against Israel.” The flags will remain lowered until sunset this coming Saturday (Oct. 14), the county government said.
“There are hundreds and hundreds of deaths that have already been reported as a result of this violence, and I want to keep our Middle Eastern friends and more importantly for us, the families and people connected to them in Fairfax County in our thoughts and prayers,” McKay said.
The U.S., state and county flags are lowered to half-staff to honor the lives lost in the terror attack committed against Israel.
The flags will remain lowered until sunset on Oct. 14. pic.twitter.com/amllD5C0wA
— Fairfax County Government 🇺🇸 (@fairfaxcounty) October 9, 2023
Woodson High School may soon drop “W.T.” from the beginning of its name.
The Fairfax County School Board launched a formal process last week to consider renaming the school just outside Fairfax City, adding it to a growing list of local institutions and landmarks whose monikers have been reevaluated in recent years.
Crediting students with advocating for change, the school board has suggested adopting scholar Dr. Carter G. Woodson — the “Father of Black History” — as the school’s namesake in place of Wilbur Tucker Woodson, whose long tenure as Fairfax County Public Schools superintendent included opposition to desegregation.
“I truly believe it will be and can be a remarkable moment for our county, for a solemn reckoning of our county and our Commonwealth’s segregationist past and a reconciliation and a healing,” said Braddock District School Board Representative Megan McLaughlin, who introduced the proposal at a work session on Sept. 12.
The proposal was co-sponsored by six other school board members, including all three at-large members and three other members — Karl Frisch (Providence), Ricardy Anderson (Mason) and Laura Jane Cohen (Springfield) — who also represent portions of the Woodson area.
Now serving over 2,400 students, Woodson was the largest school in Fairfax County and Virginia when it originally opened its doors in fall 1962 — just over a year after W.T. Woodson retired in June 1961, according to FCPS.
Appointed superintendent from 1929 to 1961, Woodson oversaw FCPS as it evolved from a smattering of small schoolhouses into one of the state’s largest districts, growth fueled by the county’s population boom following World War II.
When he died in 1983, a Washington Post obituary described Woodson as “a gradualist” who believed Black and white students should be integrated over time, starting with first graders, rather than all at once.
However, in a 1959 letter to a school board member, Woodson called desegregating schools “most unfair” because it would force “social adjustments to which so many parents strongly object.” In addition to fearing “social mixing,” he warned integration would reduce political and financial support for public schools.
According to McLaughlin, concerns about Woodson High School’s name have cropped up in the past, but it wasn’t given the same priority as schools with clear nods to the Confederacy, like J.E.B. Stuart (now Justice High School), Robert E. Lee (renamed after Rep. John Lewis) and Mosby Woods (now Mosaic Elementary School).
That changed when an FCPS staff member found the 1959 letter while researching the system’s history with segregation, confirming that Woodson’s resistance to integration reflected his personal beliefs, not just adherence to state policy.
“The school board may consider a change in the name of an existing school or facility to ensure an inclusive, respectful learning environment,” McLaughlin told FFXnow. “It’s not inclusive when you have the name of an individual on a building that we now have a document that shows that he believed in the merits of segregation.”
Noting that several of her family members have attended Woodson, including her husband, brothers and children, McLaughlin stressed her desire to approach the renaming process with “humility,” even as she hopes the community will support Carter G. Woodson as an alternate name. Read More
Crews are planning to demolish a building on the campus of W.T. Woodson High School that was engulfed by flames earlier this year.
An hours-long fire consumed an administrative building facing Main Street in the early morning hours of Jan. 30. Part of the roof and an external wall collapsed, WTOP previously reported.
A spokesperson for Fairfax County Public Schools said the damage was “beyond repair” during the fire.
There is no word yet on what’s in store for the site once it is demolished. It’s unclear when demolition will begin, although county permits were processed in March.
“Plans will be submitted if there is to be a rebuild,” FCPS spokesperson Julie Moult wrote in a statement.
Fire investigators did not conclusively determine what caused the fire, which was accidental in nature and started in an office. The fire caused roughly $8.8 million in damages.
The building was used for ground maintenance and operations support, a locksmith, stock room, offices, a break room, and storage.
Houston is the place to be this week for the robotics community, and several Fairfax County students scored exclusive invitations.
Fairfax County Public Schools has three teams in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) World Championships, which kicked off today (Wednesday) at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas.
The annual event caps off months of work and competitions for high school students around the world who have designed, programmed and built industrial-sized robots that face off in sports-like games.
Representing Fairfax County among the 454 teams that qualified for the championships — most of them from the U.S. — are James Madison High School’s Warbots, the CAVEBOTICS from Woodson High School, and Oakton Cougar Robotics.
🤖 Good luck to our @JamesMadisonHS, @OaktonHS and @WTWoodsonHS Robotics teams competing in the World Championships in Houston this week! https://t.co/eYy6xgJdco
— Fairfax Schools 🌟 (@fcpsnews) April 20, 2022
Madison and Oakton have both participated in FIRST Robotics Competitions since 2001, but for the Vienna school, this year marks its first trip to the championships after the Warbots won the school’s first-ever district title on April 9, according to FCPS.
FCPS is part of the Chesapeake District, which includes teams from Virginia, Maryland, D.C., and West Virginia.
Oakton Cougar Robotics previously made the championships in 2016.
Woodson’s CAVEBOTICS are relatively new to the scene. The Fairfax-based school added the team to its cybersecurity and robotics club last year, and it has already grown to over 50 students, according to a Gofundme fundraiser that the team started to support its activities.
With robots costing $6,000 to $12,000 a year to build, fundraising is among the many skills that students learn from the FIRST competitions, along with welding, coding, engineering, and project management, Madison High School said in its post on the Warbots.
A nonprofit founded in 1989, FIRST aims to support science, technology, engineering, and math education through school-based robotics programs for students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.
The championship will culminate with awards on Saturday (April 23). All of the contests and challenges, along with the closing ceremony, are being livestreamed on Twitch.
